VH Reservoir Mapping

Abstract

A method and system of detecting and mapping a subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir includes determining ratio data for a plurality of orthogonal spectral components of naturally occurring low frequency background seismic data. The ratio data may be compared, plotted, contoured and displayed as a subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir map or a hydrocarbon potential map. The ratio data may represent a vertical spectral component of the seismic data over a horizontal spectral component of the seismic data. The subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir map may include contouring the ratio data over a geographical area associated with the seismic data.

1. A set of application program interfaces embodied on a machine readable medium for execution by a processor in conjunction with an application program for detecting a subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir, the set of application program interfaces comprising: a first interface that receives ratio data representative of a vertical spectral component relative to a horizontal spectral component, the spectral components derived from naturally occurring low frequency background seismic data; and a second interface that receives the ratio data to compare with a predetermined threshold value, wherein ratio data exceeding the threshold value indicates the location of a subsurface hydrocarbon reservoir. 
     
     
       2. The set of application interface programs according to  claim 1  further comprising a fifth interface to receive data to merge two horizontal spectral components to obtain a merged horizontal spectral component. 
     
     
       3. The set of application interface programs according to  claim 1  further comprising a sixth interface to receive the ratio data in a form for display. 
     
     
       4. The set of application interface programs according to  claim 1  further comprising a seventh interface to receive the ratio data for contouring in a form for display as a map. 
     
     
       5. The set of application interface programs according to  claim 1  further comprising: a third interface that receives vertical motion component data from naturally occurring low frequency background seismic data for a data transform to obtain a vertical spectral component; and a fourth interface that receives horizontal motion component data from naturally occurring low frequency background seismic data for the data transform to obtain a horizontal spectral component. 
     
     
       6. The set of application interface programs according to  claim 5  wherein the data transform for the third and fourth interface is selected from the group consisting of: a discrete Fourier transform, a continuous Fourier transform, a continuous wavelet transform, and a discrete wavelet transform.